


Sonata For Two Hands

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Patrick OBrian - Master and Commander series
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:schemingreader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen tries to make music again.<br/>Set post Stephen's torture in H.M.S. Surprise. Spoilers for that novel, as well as general character back stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sonata For Two Hands

  


  
  
  
  
  


  
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## Sonata For Two Hands

 

Fandom: [Patrick OBrian - Master and Commander series](http://yuletidetreasure.org/get_fandom_quicksearch.cgi?Fandom=Patrick%20OBrian%20-%20Master%20and%20Commander%20series)

 

Written for: schemingreader in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge

by [Philipa Moss](http://yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?filename=64/sonatafor)

Jack was bellowing something on deck. There was the sound of feet rushing obediently   
overhead, and then another bellow from Jack, and then more rushing. It was beyond   
anything that Stephen could comprehend. Why, for all love, should grown men rush back   
and forth with fixed expressions on the behest of one man? Should any one question this   
assumption, should the hierarchy be broken, it would be not only the end of the navy but   
of the empire as well, one guessed. It was an intriguing possibility.

Moving slowly, Stephen eased the cello out from its locker and thudded inelegantly into a   
chair. Decidedly bottom-heavy, like the cello. Curious, then, that his actual bottom   
should strike the chair seat so bonily.

The cello, at any rate, seemed to have suffered no damage from his abrupt landing,   
nestled snugly in his lap as it was. The chips and scratches all along the front and sides   
were from a fantastic hurdle it had taken months past. In the midst of the Boccherini   
Sonata in D Minor an extraordinary wind drove the ship into a 50-degree angle, flinging   
Stephen and the cello across the cabin. Jack barely swayed, and was mindful enough to   
put his violin down before running above, calling as he went, "Killick there! Belay the   
doctor!"

Stephen tried to get a grip on the bow. His fingers curled only slowly, and the grip was   
difficult to come by. Ever since Jack had pulled him off the machine, Stephen had been   
trying for more flexibility, day by day. This was the first day he had even contemplated   
taking out his cello. He wanted to do it with the luxury of privacy first, so as not to suffer   
Jack's well-meant and entirely pitiful noises. Amazing how a grown man could make the   
cheeping noises akin to the noises of guinea fowl, which Jack tended towards while   
searching for the right words. Ordinarily he would speak without thinking, rendering the   
noises unnecessary. Ever since the rescue, Jack had thought first and spoken second. It   
was most off-putting.

Of course, most men, most educated men, thought first. Growing up with his Fitzgerald   
cousins, Stephen had been occasionally mocked for the circumstances surrounding his   
birth. At first his instinct was to lash out at those around him. His nurse, however, had   
taught him to "keep it for himself," as she termed it. A wise farmer's wife, she took it   
upon herself to give Stephen the tools he would need to survive: Introspection, and   
consideration. Powerful tools indeed. What she started, his godfather continued. It was   
his godfather who taught him naturalism, or began to. It was his godfather who had taken   
him on long walks and explained that it was necessary to cultivate skills that would set   
him apart from other men, and that it was important to be the kind of man other men must   
rack the brains in order to think ill of. It had taken a long time, but Stephen had come to   
realize that there was more than one kind of education to be had. Jack Aubrey was not an   
intellectual, and he certainly had his enemies---to use one of his own phrases, he had   
made his bed and now he must eat it---but he was a good man, a man of a different sort of   
decency.

Stephen's godfather also taught him the cello. There was an old one, beyond repair, in the   
attic of his godfather's house. Stephen pulled it out one day, took it outside, examined it,   
and tried to play it. His mother told him to stop; it was giving her a headache. When his   
godfather came home, he explained about tuning, and care of the instrument. He   
promised that the next time he went into town, he would bring Stephen back an   
instrument of his own, a working one.

Once he had the bow in one hand, Stephen set about trying to tune the instrument. I might   
as well be a crab, Stephen thought to himself, for all the good these claws are doing me.   
A light grey crab, perhaps, a sentinel crab, which burrows when danger appears. That   
would be the wisest course of action. 'Twould be much less foolish, to be a crab. As he   
struggled to find purchase on the cello's neck, Stephen set himself to thinking what kind   
of crab Diana would be. Not a horseshoe crab, certainly---that would do very well for   
Babbington---perhaps something with similar durability but more elegance. A toothed   
shore crab, perhaps. Paragrapsus quadridentatus. They could live for hours without water,   
with hardiness completely unexpected from such a beautiful creature. Sophie, of course,   
would be a sponge crab, carrying with her a piece of soft coral.

At the Sorbonne, Stephen kept a cello in his rooms and would often play into the night, if   
time and his landlady permitted. Adhemar de La Mothe would sometimes accompany   
him on the piano in his own rooms, but Stephen, although his great friend, rarely   
frequented those soirees after having his bottom pinched by Alain Dufrois, a pimply   
youth with spectacles.

Alain Dufrois, Stephen decided, adjusting his grip on the cello, would decidedly be a   
hairy crab, Pilumnus fissifrons.

Stephen had yet to play for Diana. Perhaps he never would. Such a thing was best left on   
board for long voyages. It was something he did with Jack and Jack alone these days.   
Besides, God alone knew if such a thing would even be possible.

Stephen drew the bow across the strings. It barely made a sound. He focused his energy   
on applying more pressure, but this only caused him to drop the bow and shout out an   
inadvertent "Jesus Mary and Joseph!" He let the bow rest on the floor and attempted to   
massage his hands, but this proved difficult. If only I had a third, Stephen thought, for   
emergencies. Why should we be equipped with only the bare necessitates for life,   
appendix and the larger teeth excluded?

Cello be damned, then. At least today. Stephen reminded himself of the necessity of   
taking small steps. Such easy advice to give to patients; so easy to be a physician only.

Jack came into the cabin suddenly. Stephen had not heard his steps, as unlikely as such a   
thing was. Floating on such a creaking contraption did not often allow for the possibility.

"What are you about, Stephen?"

"I have been attempting, without success, a little music."

Jack stood in the doorway. "Have you indeed."

"Yes." Stephen cast about and finally leaned the cello against the chair opposite. "I don't   
get on at all, my dear, but it is as to be expected. In the future I shall use the cello as a   
measurement of my progress. For the larger muscles, I shall use my ability to swim the   
length of the ship."

Jack nodded, soberly. "Stephen, I am wretched about this."

"Pray do not. Only be so good as to hand me my bow."

Jack came in and knelt to pick it up. He straightened, but made no move to hand it to   
Stephen, whose hand, such as it was, waited outstretched.

"Jack?"

"Shall I play for you? It'd be violin, of course, but I would use your bow, so it would be   
as if you were playing."

Stephen let his hand drop, and leaned back in his chair. "If music be the food of love;   
play on."

Jack stared at him blankly.

"The great Shakespeare." Jack would not know. Indeed, although he had certain   
knowledge of the Bard, it would have shocked Stephen if he had known it. Jack was not   
an intellectual man. He could not quote the great poets, or replicate philosophical   
arguments. It would be shocking to find him reading a non-military history.

And yet he seemed, now, to have the only answer that mattered.

"Do play," Stephen said. "I should like that of all things."

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